KOCHI: It’s more than three days since Dr Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister, visited St Teresa’s College, Ernakulam, and answered students’ questions ranging from demonetisation to black money, Non Performing Assets (NPAs) to the current state of the economy, but the girls are still to get over the excitement of posing relevant questions to none other than the architect of India’s economic reforms.
The lecture by Manmohan Singh at the college was designed to accommodate four questions from students, after his speech.
“Around 50 questions were prepared by the students of the college from which we selected the best 10 and forwarded it to the former Prime Minister’s office. Singh’s office chose four,” explained Thushara George, head, Department of Economics, who was the brain behind the programme.
While Manmohan Singh, who occupied various key positions from Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission to the RBI Governor and Union Finance Minister, was the star attraction of the day, the four girls who posed the questions to the renowned economist too shared the limelight.
“It was really a big surprise for me when I came to know that the question which I had posted was selected. The fact that I would be able to interact with the one who I admire, and have seen only in television till now excited me,” said Tina Rose Jacob, a final year BA Economics student, who harbours the ambition to become an economist of repute one day.
Tina asked Singh how he would compare India internationally with other giants and small players. Singh, who had opened up India’s economy in 1991, said, “The economy has been growing at close to 7 per cent after liberalisation. All the governments that came to power did not backtrack from the liberalisation path, after seeing the success of the policy. However, the problem of unemployment and poverty still continues.” He added, Indian economy needs to grow at 8-10 per cent to find a credible solution to the problem of unemployment and poverty.
Second year BA Economics student Shalin Sajan’s question, was, perhaps, what many in the country would want to ask Manmohan Singh, whose prediction that the GDP will fall two per cent due to demonetisation came true when the April-June 2017 quarter economic growth figures came out. Shalin’s question to Singh was: ‘If you were the current Prime Minister of India where the black money and counterfeit currency problem is at its zenith, what action would you have taken to tackle the issue?’ Singh began by saying he does not have any ‘ready-made answers’, but went on to say “demonetisation was not the appropriate answer” to tackle black money.
Singh suggested simplifying the tax structure, land registration system and administration could achieve better results.Niyati Pavitran, final year BA-English Literature student, asked Singh how demonetisation has affected our economy. He said when 86 per cent of the currency (in value terms) in circulation was sought to be removed from the system, it administered a big shock to the economy. Small farmers, traders and industries are yet to recover from the havoc the note ban left in its wake.